So I just read this blog about tiers and it got me thinking.
My game is changing, the pc's are lvl 10, one of them has take leadership (I'm not sure if one of the others are considering it) the group is slowly evolving from troubleshooters in a fledgling group to leaders of a organization.
last game I got a confirmation that there are some encounters where rolling the dice is just busywork; it can be fun to show of how powerful they are now and again - but there are some enemies they beat hands down, always. (of course disregarding insane luck, critical hits, ambushes or other shenanigans)
this makes me think that there might be some encounters in the future that will not be fights to the death, but more story elements.
Meaning: wheter or not they win is not the question,
but how long it takes them (in case a baron with a twirly mustache is running out the back door while they are slaughtering henchmen for example),
or how they do it (maybe killing those indignous ppl from wherever might be fastest, but it sure as hell isn't going to give you a nice reputation)
so how would you resolve such fights? my 2 thoughts are:
1.) Any monster/npc/etc under a certain CR I don't roll dice or initiate combat with unless the players insist on tryong out there new sword. The whole encounter gets roleplayed out with narrative and descriptions. If a players suggests something very specific I make them roll for that part of the fight - for example subduing a young enemy soldier without killing him in the middle of an ambush. but most of the fights gets reduced to a story with cliff notes.
2.) Something similiar only with an added mechanical element: like a "Warfare" stat or something? I don't know if any of the Ultimate-books have anything like that? open for suggestions.
tldr: at higher lvl, low lvl enemies still exits (in my game), but are hardly capable of scratching the pcs. how to keep a skirmish against 5 lvl 2 bandits from being just a dicewank that wastes gaming time and turn it into a part of the collaborative storytelling?
The twin d20 games SpyCraft and FantasyCraft have a special NPC type called Mook.
Mooks have literally 1 HP, and make up the bulk of the enemies you face.
There are varrying levels of Mooks, including Elite Mooks as I recall, and they can have several levels' worth of competence, save for the 1HP thing.
Only Henchmen and Bosses (actual terms) have HP to speak of, and always have PC levels
So for Mooks, you simply Roll to Hit, and then kill them as PCs.
A little context here, though - in SpyCraft, you're not so much playing a character in a normal story as you are playing a character in a Spy/Action movie, and there are even mechanics for Scenes. Therefore, the need for Redshirts exist from level 1 onward.
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Since you're getting into the "action movie hero" levels of 10-15 here, simply figuring out the minimum amount of damage your party members can do would be a good idea, and just have them roll for hit vs low-level enemies.
Alternatively, if you know that their lowest Attacks can also hit even on a roll of 1, simply disregard the rolling entirely, and have them describe which bad guys they're taking down and how, doing away with things like Critical Hits and Misses on 1, etc.
Obviously keep the attack/damage rolling and Crit Rolls/Misses on 1 for major enemies like henchmen and mid-bosses, but for the Faceless Hordes of enemies you can just treat them as 1HP plot elements.
Another thing to note is maybe consider using Fame and Infamy.
If your characters are lv10, they're starting to become powerful adventurers. So it goes to pass that they'd be famous, as well.
At that point, if their Fame/Infamy is fairly high, then even Mooks would have heard of them, and may be reluctant to try and fight if they know they're only going to be mowed down.
I mean, think about shows and movies where the heroes' names alone can make enemy legions back down. In One Piece or Fairy Tail, for instance, the name "Straw Hat" or the names of various members of Fairy Tail can make all but the craziest/most powerful mages go running.
My name is The Doctor, and you are in the biggest library in the Universe. Look. Me. Up.
Mutants and Masterminds lets you Take 10 on attack rolls against Minions, and they always take the worst possible effect of an attack (essentially they always dail saves and one hit KOs them).
Could be a useful rule here.
there are some encounters where rolling the dice is just busyworkSwitch to E6.
At no point should any aspect of your game be classified as "busy work."
Eventually some enemies are just not a threat to you and as such are busy work. That's true even in E6; is it worth it for your level 6 PCs to roll out the fight versus a handful of 1/4 CR critters that they random encountered on the side of the road?
You could steal the Owl Hoot Trail rules for greenhorns and cowpokes.
A greenhorn has exactly 1 HP, like the Spycraft's mook. You hit him, he dies.
A cowpoke has all the stats of a normal creature, except he does not have hit points. He instead dies when he's successfully hit twice.
I'm not sure how I feel about the cowpoke. If you litter your game with such enemies it would seem to undermine a lot of assumptions of the game, namely that if you are good at what you do you can defeat enemies faster. It would also seem to lead to situations where you crit a mook in the face for 150 damage on a charge but he's stil up and then the wizard just magic missiles said mook's identical twin and straight up murders him with missiles to spare. If I was the melee guy there I'd be a bit annoyed.
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Eventually some enemies are just not a threat to you and as such are busy work. That's true even in E6; is it worth it for your level 6 PCs to roll out the fight versus a handful of 1/4 CR critters that they random encountered on the side of the road?there are some encounters where rolling the dice is just busyworkSwitch to E6.
At no point should any aspect of your game be classified as "busy work."
Get a better DM who doesn't waste your time with inconsequential encounters. Also, if your random encounter chart comes up with a few CR 1/4 critters for your 6th level party, you're using the wrong chart.
It's amazing how many complaints and annoyances expressed in these forums could be remedied by the phrase "get better."
Gaming is a passtime, yes, but it's also communal and cooperative. It's your responsibility to try to be a good player (or DM), otherwise you're going to ruin it for everyone and waste their time.
Let me put it this way: If your group of friends was really into street hockey, but one of your buddies was a 400-pound agoraphobe, would you feel bad about not inviting him to play? Of course not; if he's morbidly obese and scared to death of the outdoors, sports probably aren't his thing anyway. If you're a good friend, you probably find other activities you can include him in, naturally, but he's off the hockey team for sure.
If your DM can't run a good game or some of your players act in such a way as to ruin it for everyone else, talk to them or tell them not to come back. When I was younger, my friends asked me to stop coming to their D&D game and, you know what? They were right. I was being obnoxious and rude, power gaming my little heart out and trying to dominate the spotlight. It took that confrontation to make me realize what I'd been doing and inspire me to become a better gamer. It worked. Years later, I've busted my butt to get good at this, my favorite hobby. These days, people are constantly asking me to run games for them and inviting me to play in theirs.
To complete my earlier analogy, I lost 200 pounds, got some therapy, and learned how to skate. Now I'm the captain of the team. Tough love works.
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I'm not sure how I feel about the cowpoke. If you litter your game with such enemies it would seem to undermine a lot of assumptions of the game, namely that if you are good at what you do you can defeat enemies faster. It would also seem to lead to situations where you crit a mook in the face for 150 damage on a charge but he's stil up and then the wizard just magic missiles said mook's identical twin and straight up murders him with missiles to spare. If I was the melee guy there I'd be a bit annoyed.You could steal the Owl Hoot Trail rules for greenhorns and cowpokes.
A greenhorn has exactly 1 HP, like the Spycraft's mook. You hit him, he dies.
A cowpoke has all the stats of a normal creature, except he does not have hit points. He instead dies when he's successfully hit twice.
The cowpoke rules also say "If a cowpoke receives a critical hit, he dies instantly. He knows his role." So you win either way!
EDIT: To be fair, Owl Hoot Trail is basically "d20 but in the Old West and even more extremely lethal."
Get a better DM who doesn't waste your time with inconsequential encounters. Also, if your random encounter chart comes up with a few CR 1/4 critters for your 6th level party, you're using the wrong chart.
stuff
1. Having every random thing in the world scale with the PCs defeats any sense of actual progression and worse than that, really don't make sense. Why are there dire wolves roaming around outside the city now instead of packs of wild dogs? Did someone introduce an invasive species since the last time the party was here 4 levels ago? The DM here is trying to find a balance between building a believable world where things don't auto scale with PCs "just because" and not wasting his game time with encounters that are non-issues.
2. The TC is a DM who is trying to get better and is asking for advice. You respond with "lol suck less." How is that helpful or productive? Why would you even bother coming in here to say that?
Back on topic, out of the options listed in the original post, I'd say option 1 is the best bet along with a dose of what Arrius suggested in regards to resource loss. That way you could simulate the attrition of such minor encounters and appropriately weaken the PCs for when they encounter the real fight of the day. That said, I wouldn't bother rolling for the resource loss if the minor encounters weren't part of some larger gambit where it would actually matter; no need to waste the time if it is literally just some random bandits that attacked them on the side of the road.
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Never thought I'd actually see someone unironically tell someone "git gud nub" on these boards but here we are
A lot of (mostly) good replies, and some interesting thoughts.
In my case I'm going to go with the "narrative approach" (option 1) and the suggestion of most things 5 lvls under them being treated this way.
But I am going to shy away from adding more mechanics than that because:
making more rules just for the sake of having a game with more rules is not a good fit/philosophy for my group. And I have a sneaky suspicion that it would just end up being me making more work for myself without the players noticing mouch of a difference.
The mook (or greenhorn or minions) rules have some merit, but I don't think it's something we need in our games right now. Also 1 of the players has s%%$ combat stats but massive knowledge and magic skills, while many of the others have massive ganking skills but sometimes no skills to speak of beside - letting each type shine at different times is part of the fun for them, so I'll let that be.
And I am leery of using any automatic resource drain-rule simply because I'm not sure if it would go over well with my gang ... might try it out.
As a side note ... I am thinking about making some kind of mechanic similiar/inspired by Dragon Age: Inquisition's battle map: small missions maybe to small for the players to get involved in that they can send cohorts on.
(if you haven't played that game: it's a big map with dots on it, each dot is a small challenge/mission with 3 possible solutions - diplomatic, spies, army - some missions will only succeed if you pick the right approach, while others will give different rewards)
I'm thinking of keeping the 3 different approach thing, and giving each misssion a % for each. that way you can succeed (against the odds) with a "wrong" choice, but it's easier with the "right" one.
for example:
"Bandits on the Buelwell Road"
A group of bandits have blahblahbla etc etc ...
do you:
Diplomacy: convince them to guard the road and join your organization (25%)
Subterfuge: Assasinate the leader, without direction they will scatter (50%)
Warfare: send troops to slaughter/drive them away (75%)
but then again ... maybe this is just me making more rules to have more rules in my game? :)
It's good if the Maker smiles on you and you're not one of the many with crippling bugs making the game literally unplayable.
It all depends on why you're adding lower-level encounters to begin with. Is it to slowly drain resources, provide flavor to the world, or is it to challenge players?
If it is to drain resources, I suggest the draining method above.
If flavor, a narrative approach is very appropriate.
If it's a challenge (in the vein of Tucker's Kobolds), feel free to knock them down a peg.
oh it's definitely for flavor, I'm thinking I want to give them
a.) a sense being more powerful then they started out (I hated that part of elder scroll games where the critters leveled with you, it was dumb and annoying)b.) a sense of being in a large organization, having subordinates with their own adventures that report to them on their missions.
On topic:
Adding percentile-based events in the campaign might reduce the intractability between your players and the event in question, unless your players are amenable to such methods. I myself have players who are fine with abstract rulings as long as they are consistent.
Rule -1 is: Do what's fun for the group.But taking that into account, a d% die is very neutral, and does not take into account any diplomatically-oriented characters, unless you also take their skills into account.
If you wish to use it with a bit of adjustment, here's an idea to help you.
Modify a percentiles to each +1 the character with the skill has. By default, I'm thinking a 1% per +1, but you may adjust the percentage as much as you'd like, like 2% per +1.
Diplomacy: convince them to guard the road and join your organization (25%)
Subterfuge: Assasinate the leader, without direction they will scatter (50%)
Warfare: send troops to slaughter/drive them away (75%)The character with +10 to Diplomacy would increase the chances of success by 10%, or increase it by 20% (if doubling the rate), for a total of 35/45%.
Subterfuge will compare the other player's Bluff/Intimidate bonus, which is (for example) +4, increasing the chance from 50% to 54%.
Warfare will be combat as usual. Giving players the option to use their own skill allows for focused characters to shine.
just to clarify, these missions will not have the actual Pc characters involved.
They get a choice between 3 npcs or groups (the noble, the spies/assassins & the warriors) for whom to solve the problem , and then they will later get a report on what happened.(of course if they decide to get involved then voila presto: sidequest)
I'm currently also thinking that I will keep the percentil secret before they choose but maybe some other model will also work.
The goal is to have them doing some management when they are back in the base and then next time they have downtime they will see the results of their choices.
It's mostly for world building and flavor and I'm trying to make it as simple as possible.
Off-topic:Never played Inquisition. Is it better than Origins?
I like it a lot, it is (good and bad) a bioware cprg to the core.
I have enjoyed it and it's very much like an expansion on the philosophies from Origins with some gamplay elements from other bioware games.(for me it is very similiar to the mass effect games as well as it's predecessors)
damn long though, still haven't finishied it (hard to find the time in a normal work week)
When it comes to bugs I guess I've been lucky, some clipping issues during cutscenes but the game itself is solid.
My personal suggestion? Give them the bandit camp situation, but instead of doing it with percentiles, simply have them handle it as they will.
Let's say they want to take the diplomacy route. They start by sending a messenger to the bandits. Well, the messenger doesn't come back, so the party decides it's time to go investigate personally.
The party arrives. They negotiate with the bandits, RPing the event out. No combat is necessary unless they completely flub negotiations, and they're famous heroes by this point, so the party convincing the bandits to join their organization COULD happen. Let them roleplay the scene and you may be surprised with their ingenuity.
If it comes to a battle, well, the bandits are weaker than the party. You can probably just say "okay, you clear them out; they're all dead." Alternatively, you make it such that 2-3 of the bandits are actually challenging in some way (the leader + his trusted lieutenants), and you have a fight with them; the rest of the scene is handwaved with "you kill or route the rest of the bandits."
Your PCs may even try something scary inventive like poisoning the bandits' water supply to take them out, which is an option not available in your three options system. Or maybe they'll hire another group of bandits to deal with them, killing two birds with one stone. Etc.
Your PCs may even try something scary inventive like poisoning the bandits' water supply to take them out, which is an option not available in your three options system. Or maybe they'll hire another group of bandits to deal with them, killing two birds with one stone. Etc.
Something tells me you've played Age of Decadence ... :)